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Translated by Cardinal Newman.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 130 Pages
Page 12
66. For if, as has been said, because of the resurrection from the dead He is called a beginning, and then a resurrection took place when He, bearing our flesh, had given Himself to death for us, it is evident that His words, 'He created me a beginning of ways,' is indicative not of His essence [2656] , but of His bodily presence. For to the body death was proper [2657] ; and in like manner to the bodily presence are the words proper, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways.' For since the Saviour was thus created according to the flesh, and had become a beginning of things new created, and had our first fruits, viz. that human flesh which He took to Himself, therefore after Him, as is fit, is created also the people to come, David saying, 'Let this be written for another generation, and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord [2658] .' And again in the twenty-first Psalm, 'The generation to come shall declare unto the Lord, and they shall declare His righteousness, unto a people that shall be born whom the Lord made [2659] .' For we shall no more hear, 'In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die [2660] ,' but 'Where I am, there ye' shall 'be also;' so that we may say, 'We are His workmanship, created unto good works [2661] .' And again, since God's work, that is, man, though created perfect, has become wanting through the transgression, and dead by sin, and it was unbecoming that the work of God should remain imperfect (wherefore all the saints were praying concerning this, for instance in the hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, saying, 'Lord, Thou shalt requite for me; despise not then the works of Thine hands [2662] '); therefore the perfect [2663] Word of God puts around Him an imperfect body, and is said to be created 'for the works;' that, paying the debt [2664] in our stead, He might, by Himself, perfect what was wanting to man. Now immortality was wanting to him, and the way to paradise. This then is what the Saviour says, 'I glorified Thee on the earth, I perfected the work which Thou hast given Me to do [2665] ;' and again, 'The works which the Father hath given Me to perfect, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me;' but 'the works [2666] ' He here says that the Father had given Him to perfect, are those for which He is created, saying in the Proverbs, 'The Lord created me a beginning of His ways, for His works;' for it is all one to say, 'The Father hath given me the works,' and 'The Lord created me for the works.'
[2656] S:45, n. 2.
[2657] Athanasius here says that our Lord's body was subject to death; and so Incarn. 20, e. also 8, b. 18. init. Orat. iii. 56. And so ton anthropon sathrothenta. Orat. iv. 33. And so S. Leo in his Tome lays down that in the Incarnation, suscepta est ab aeternitate mortalitas. Ep. 28. 3. And S. Austin, Utique vulnerabile atque mortale corpus habuit [Christus] contr. Faust. xiv. 2. A Eutychian sect denied this doctrine (the Aphthartodocetae), and held that our Lord's manhood was naturally indeed corrupt, but became from its union with the Word incorrupt from the moment of conception; and in consequence it held that our Lord did not suffer and die, except by miracle. vid. Leont. c. Nest. ii. (Canis. t. i. pp. 563, 4, 8.) vid. supr. i. 43 and 44, notes; also infr. 76, note. And further, note on iii. 57.
[2658] Ps. cii. 18.
[2659] Ib. xxii. 32.
[2660] Gen. ii. 17.
[2661] John xiv. 3; Eph. ii. 10.
[2662] Ps. cxxxviii. 8.
[2663] Cf. Orat. iv. 11.
[2664] anth' hemon ten opheilen apodidous, and so the Lord's death lutron panton. Incarn. V.D. 25. lutron katharsion. Naz. Orat. 30, 20. fin. also supr. 9, 13, 14, 47, 55, 67. In Illud. Omn. 2 fin.
[2665] John xvii. 4.
[2666] Ib. v. 36.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/discourses-against-arians-2.asp?pg=12
